by Mike Wehner
“Last meal?” I said. The cuff of Emily’s dress hopped up a tiny bit with each bump in the road.
“Like a death row meal?”
“Yeah, last meal before you die.”
Erin smacked at Emily’s leg to swat down her dress. “A fresh baguette, a bottle of olive oil and all the butter they can find. You?”
“Ramen,” I said. Erin made a face like the bus was passing a chicken farm.
“You’d want soup?”
Ramen was sacred to me, it was the first meal I cooked myself. I was a blue collar kid, the parents did shift work to keep the milk cold and sneakers fresh. A kid can only eat so much cereal before he gives in and asks how to use the microwave. Then when I was ten or eleven they started leaving pasta sauce in the fridge with boiled noodles to nuke. One night there wasn’t any sauce and there wasn’t any milk and I found that familiar orange package under a bag of moldy tortillas in our ethnic food cabinet. Chicken ramen it said. I opened it like a bag of chips and shook the block out on the counter. I thought it was meat, a fossilized chunk of ground poultry.
The instructions were simple, four easy steps to reconstitute the petrified tangle. I lorded over the pot of water while it boiled to make sure I didn’t miss whatever magic made that thing edible. The noodles gurgled apart and when I dove in for a sniff and the steam fogged up my glasses. I flipped the wrapper every which way to figure out what the hell I was making. The separate ingredients for noodles and soup base gave it away. I had to fish the silver packet of chicken flavor from the garbage, I thought it was an inedible desiccant packs like the ones inside bags of beef jerky.
I jammed a licked finger into the pouch and tasted it. It looked like powered jaundice, but I popped it into my mouth anyways. All the moisture flooded to the spot where my finger was stuck to my tongue. The first sensation was a tannic smack, then an umami suck that I felt in cringe more than taste. My spit coalesced into a pool of hyper-seasoned chicken stock. Unable to choke it back, the aroma flew up my nose and my entire body coughed. It wasn’t the best taste ever, but it was the most taste ever.
“I’ve only eaten the instant kind,” Erin said, “I know it’s become a big thing but if I go somewhere Japanese I want raw fish.”
“There are so many great spots around here, you have no excuse.”
“Then we should go, I’ll pay in the name of research,” she said. The bottoms of her feet were up on the window, head dangling off the seat and she was looking at me upside down.
“You want to cook ramen now?” I said.
“No, I thought you’d want the free meal. It’s one of those things I always say I’m going to try but never do.” Emily shifted in her sleep and the top of her knee cracked me in the lip. The taste really was the same as the wine.
“There are so many variables, one place isn’t enough. You need to eat all the ramen.” I rubbed my face.
“Can you make it?” Upside down, Erin finally looked like the demon I imagined.
“God no, it’s complicated. People spend their whole lives perfecting the broth alone.”
“What do you like to cook then? If you could cook anything I mean.”
“This sounds a lot like that stupid million dollar game.”
“So,” she said, “I love games.” Mike watched us banter.
“Eggs, stand at a flat top and flip eggs and talk about football and corrupt alderman.” I wasn’t thinking, I was saying.
“It must be nice to know who you are, I’m still figuring out what I’m supposed to cook. We’ll go for soup soon.”
“We’re fat,” Mike said, “we’re old, we’re tired, but this night isn’t over.”
Emily smacked her lips three times and said, “shut up and take me home, maybe I’ll make out with you.” She snatched my jacket off the seat and put it under her head.
Thirteen
Day 963
Erin called the whole team together before service. I sat at the bar with the other cooks while the waitstaff huddled around tables in cliques. The people who were serving their way towards something around some tables and the lifers at others, looking older even if they weren’t. Emily, who moonlighted as a server, sat by herself with a bottle of lotion that she used to make her hands glossy.
The clicking of Erin’s shoes preceded her entrance. Two ballpoint pens and a set of plating tongs were clipped at the side of her apron like a sergeant’s stripes.
“Shut up,” she said, “tonight just got a lot more important.” Erin waited for people to finish their sentences and give her their undivided attention before she continued.
“A real-deal, important food critic is coming tonight,” she paused to let it sink in and folded her arms, “I got a tip from a friend and I know it’s real because he’s allergic to peanuts and that’s on the reservation.” Her sleeves were rolled up and she had a tattoo I’d never noticed on her forearm, a symbol made of three spirals all tangled together. It spun in on itself as she motioned, pleaded, demanded that we execute tonight. Three connected circles, one line. Was it a random Celtic design that she picked from the parlor’s book? Could it have been a tossup between that and a butterfly on the spine? Or was it a reaction. Life, death, rebirth. Did she mean to suffer when she paid the artist and told him to put the needles into the thinnest part of her thinnest arm? Creation, preservation, destruction.
Restaurants live and die by reviews from respected sources. When the food apps and rating sites first came out society gave the scything reviews from special-snowflake millennials and their self-important rambling too much credence. Now we know to read a review and then check that blabbermouth’s other posts to see if they have ever been happy with anything, ever. Sometimes you can find a photo to go with their location, really get a bead on whose advice you’re taking.
It was especially crucial for a fledgling eatery marketed somewhere between kitschy chain restaurant and ultra-luxe eatery to get respectable press. I tapped my feet, tuned out, excited and scared. I knew I was going to feed this asshole peanuts but I was afraid it might end my adventures. My knees giggled and knocked while I tried to predict the spot in the dining room where the critic would collapse in anaphylactic shock, servers swarming around him in a circle fumbling their phones to call for help. He’d be fine, an ever-ready mom would jab the poor guy in the thigh with an Epi-pen from her purse.
“VIP table twenty-two,” Tommy said.
The kitchen was electric that night, the staff bought in to the notion that Erin’s success was their success too. That a glowing spread would change their lives.
It was a Friday so energy was already up so we could feed the growing organism in the dining room. Being on the line was awful but I liked immediacy that my work was quantified. A gorgeous return: you cook, they eat, they smile (or not). You don’t have time to watch it, the best you can hope is a glimpse of someone hobbling out the front door.
When the VIP ticket went up in the window I asked the other cooks if it was for the critic. Sometimes friends or birthdays get that tag as well. Erin was at a station in the back putting together the amuse bouche, a gelée made from plum brandy. She’d asked me to do it but spit out my first through fourth tries and called me an idiot. Her play on the dated tradition was delicious, a soft cleanse of the palette and nothing like the gasoline swab I remembered.
I’m sure Slivovitz was no longer a custom wherever it started. Food traditions have the tendency to become ubiquitous, then hated, then mocked and finally forgotten. When Erin turned towards me I saw the edge of her tattoo jutting out of a rolled-up sleeve. Invention, abandonment, rediscovery. What’s old is new.
Everyone hovered over table twenty-two’s appetizers before sending them out for judgment. Erin pulled the towel out of my waist to swipe a fleck of errant sauce from the outer rim of the plate. From inside the circle and over Miguel’s shoulder I saw the top cap of a red squeeze bottle at my station. It stood out against the white subway tile backsplash, half covered by a large blue and white box of
kosher salt. We didn’t have any peanuts in the kitchen so I ran down to the corner mart before dinner to grab a can of them, but in the land of healthy and organic the peanut isn’t hung with the whole roasted cashews and grass-fed beef jerky. The only peanut product they sold was a glass bottle of cold pressed oil which I dumped into a saucing bottle.
The entrée order came in. “Saurbraten,” was called out for me to fire and I went to work. I grabbed the squeeze bottle of nutted oil and shot half a cup into the bottom of a hot pan and then tapped a chunky spoonful of sour meat mixture on top before the oil was warm. I slid the bottle down into the front pocket of my apron, careful not to tip it.
A few minutes later we came together again to hover over the plates. We huddled up and waited for Erin to call a play and make some minor change. The chef reminded us that we are only as good as the last dish we put out. Miguel whittled in between Tommy and me.
“Trout looks good, still think we should try smoking it,” he said with his head between our chests.
“Alex,” Erin said but I couldn’t hear her.
“Alex!” she said louder.
“What?”
“Something in your pocket is leaking, what is that?”
The circle broke apart, everyone afraid I was going to get my yuck on them. The white front of my apron had a big yellow spot in the center, like thick dehydrated urine. The cooks scattered away from the plates to mull my crotch and behind the expediter pulled the food from the window. She barked a few instructions at the server and sent them on their way.
“Fuck off Tommy, it isn’t piss,” I said and moved to the back to put the soiled apron into the wash basket. The string bean followed me, Erin too busy yelling at everyone to single him out. Tommy didn’t know when to quit. I broke the emulsion on a gallon of aioli earlier in the week and he called me Mayo Slayer for two days.
“Let me smell it, let me smell it, let me smell it,” Tommy said wandering after me. The only way to get him to break his tortured artist persona was to make a mistake, then he became annoying. I threw the apron at him and shoved the bottle of oil into the basket while he fought it off his face.
“Gross,” he said, the cloth crab-pinched in front of him like a bullfighter’s cape. He held it up to his forehead and pecked at the stain until he recognized the scent.
“Your piss smells like peanuts.” He threw the soiled garment into the tub and walked away disgusted.
Fourteen
DAY 964
The stain wasn’t forgotten the following morning but the jokes were silenced by the knocks of Erin’s knife against the table. She cleaved cabbage heads and slapped at carrots like they were sides of beef. The blast from each chop made everyone’s shoulders buzz and mouths tighten—I tried not to grin. Nobody spoke, the ceiling felt like it was lowering an inch with every hack.
The food writer hadn’t keeled over in the dining room and put on the convulsive show I hoped for but something was obviously bothering Erin. He came, he saw, he ate, he paid in cash. The chopping sped up.
“Sweetheart,” Gail said with an even maternal tone even though she was the youngest in the kitchen. “Are you alright?”
“I’m,” clunk, “fine,” thwack.
“Secrets don’t make friends,” Gail said, voice rising in pitch from the far side of the kitchen where she was working her way through crates of fresh turnips, parsnips, and other edible roots. Gail turned towards her with one hand on a tilted hip, a sassy pose when a girl is about to get real.
I hated Gail and tried to set her on fire a few times, unsuccessfully. The first time I baby-stepped silently behind her with a pot of boiling water but when she turned and knocked into me the water flew onto my sleeve instead of hers. My shirt held the steam to the top of my forearm and it began to blister a few days later. It looked like a cloudy sky at dusk covered in hair. The other time I hip checked her into the stove, oops. She wasn’t as flammable as I hoped.
“It’s been a tough week, don’t worry about me just do your fucking jobs,” Erin said. Her sanity dike was cracking. She looked distressed, heavier things weighed on her.
I stood over a boiling pot of russet potatoes and reveled in the steam. This wasn’t work, it was a rejuvenating sauna.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Gail asked while I stacked and unstacked pots and pans above the burners to look busy.
“I have an idea,” Tommy said, “let’s all be quiet.” His skin was more translucent than normal, he must have been hungover.
“Tommy, let me at those chickens.” Erin pulled out a big knife and swapped spots with him.
“Alex, you look like you need to pee,” Tommy said now that he was next to me.
“Do you guys want to know why I’m so pissed?”
“Because you want to be like Alex?” Tommy said. Everybody laughed but me.
“It’s come to my attention that someone is shit-spigoting lies about our restaurant all over the web,” Erin said. She put her knife down and shoved her middle fingers way up into the corners of her eyes.
“Do you know who it is?” Gail asked.
“I think it’s Jamie whatever his name is from Red Apple,” Erin replied.
“Who?” Tommy butted in.
“Big guy, tiny pants, bad breath,” I said still moving pots that didn’t need moving. Instinct took over, I blurted the first thing that came to my head. “This might not be his fault, toxoplasmosis and all.” Erin squeaked a bit of relief.
The cooks stared at me, unsure why we were sharing an inside joke. Erin glared at me from around her fingertips so I clarified to the group what happened.
Once I got out enough detail Erin overrode me with a breathless tirade about Chef Jamie (allegedly) posting over-the-top yet crush-brutal reviews across every public food app and review site. Furthermore, all the blogs that had ever mentioned Essen got similar write ups in the comments of the articles. It wasn’t all done at once or copy/pasted, this was a thoughtful sabotage. They started last Monday and each day she’d discovered more. It was glorious, Jamie was doing my job better than I could. I got a crotch full of peanut oil for nothing while the shit-chef tore this restaurant apart. So much for doing the most damage from the inside.
“It’s everywhere, the worst part is that it’s really well written.” She went back to her knife and detailed some of the accusations and then stopped suddenly. “Shit. Shit. Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit.” Erin smiled but the creases at the end of her mouth wiggled, grinning like a missile was pointed at her head.
“Chef?” Gail said, her overprotective shtick all the way up to ten and we hadn’t made it to lunch. Erin set down her knife and buried her hands under a pile of chopped cabbage. She shook her head back and forth.
“It’s so bad, so bad,” she repeated.
“What?” Tommy said.
Erin slid her hands out together, right over left. Under her palm was a steady leak of blood that patted the counter top louder the higher she raised them. “It’s so bad,” she kept saying.
Gail rushed to grab the first aid kit from under the counter. She gushed antiseptic goo all over Erin’s sliced middle finger. A finger cot did nothing to stop the dark blood from rambling out the bottom in all directions. The cut was deep, it began at the middle joint and went up in a straight line until it curved up to her nail. The gash was so wide that it had to be folded and pinched shut before Tommy could ring tape around it rung by screaming rung. Tommy held her arm overhead and Gail stuffed gauze into the opening wherever there was room. Blood fluttered down and with each splat on the counter came a graceful skip, hop or dodge from Erin’s triage team—everyone acted like this business as usual. Calm even hands came to her rescue. All the blood made me queasy and I returned my face to the relaxing steam of the potatoes to settle my stomach.
The first aid kit was dumped across the table. Tommy and Gail rifled through the various tapes and bandages to find something that would plug the hole. Erin continued spouting everywhere.
“Honey
, this one needs stitches,” Gail said. Erin sat with her legs crossed on the floor, an exasperated expression across her blood-spattered face. The injured arm was up, a pole waving the red and white striped flag of a hand. Tommy did his best to finish taping her shut and then stood at the ready with his hands held out to plug any serious leaks.
“Alex, you’ve got to take her,” Tommy said motioning to me with his foot.
“No, blood freaks me out.” I don’t think it’s the blood that bothers me, it’s the mess it makes.
“You’re the least valuable,” he said.
“Slow,” Gail said.
“Useless,” Erin said from the floor, “they can put out dinner, all you can do is boil potatoes.”
She had a point. I hoped I’d get the chance to whisk Erin around the town with a fresh stab wound, but I didn’t think she’d be in the front seat giving directions. Banking a bit of plausible deniability wasn’t a bad way to start the day, plus I got to look the other way while she bled.
Erin used my shoulder to slide down into the passenger seat of my car with the injured arm held up as high as she could. My arm ached in sympathy and the pain reminded me of being ignored by my teachers in grade school when I had answered or asked too many questions. I didn’t put my arm down, I propped it up forever with my opposite hand to spite them and it would hurt the rest of the day.
The blood ran down her arm and soaked into the left half of her shirt. It wasn’t the color I expected. Through the window the dried pellets of blood on the top of her head looked like ticks as I shut the door.
Erin pointed me to an urgent care center close by, her voice steady but face the color of spoiled milk. My front seats were super-heated and burned whatever part of me lingered on the leather. The sun seared us from just above the top brow of the windshield. I got up on my left cheek until it started to hurt and then shifted back to my right. Our asses withstood different temperatures and we shifted out of time. I turned at the air conditioner knobs, desperate for cool air.
